Mixing LA and HA for higher int - Worth it?

[Nevyn]

Mixing LA and HA for higher int - Worth it?

Ok, so I have seen a few people do this but actually I have found it's not very common. They have a toon with Light Armor but use the Heavy Armor Helm and boots in order to increase their attack Interval (Since the bonus for two armors of the same set offers interval) and I thought to myself; is it worth it? and that's what this thread is all about. It's a comparison on what changes when you switch over to a mx of LA and HA. Here we go:

Firstly the character I am using is a level 150 Assassin. He is equipped with Dragon gears and by default is a full Dexterity build. (that is, he uses his points to meet the minimum armor requirements then uses everything else on dexterity only).

Firstly lets look at a full LA build



If you have a full Dex build you should look something like the above. Things to note:

1. No items here affect any of the stats you see with the exception of the Tome which gives an extra 3% to critical hit rate (This is equipped on both builds so the changes are relative).

2. The stats which do not change between the switch over are as follow:

Magic attack
Speed
Defense Level
Attack Level
Rage Damage
Soul Force
Stealth Level
Stealth Detection Level
Warding Level
Slaying level

Now the LA/HA mix



As you can tell, there's quite a change in the character build. But what are the exact differences? Well, the table below should help you compare:



Pros of using LA/HA Mix:

An Increase of Attacks Per Second by 16%
An Increase in defense of around 25%

Cons of using LA/HA mix:

A 20% drop in attack power
A 27% drop in accuracy
A 24% drop in evasion
A 4% drop in Magic defense
An 11% drop in your Critical Hit Rate

Summary

So I know what you are thinking, All this is great Nevyn but what does all this translate to? Who causes more damage? Well we can work this out but first we need to take away any variables. We are going to exclude Critical strikes and accuracy and work on raw figures. We will assume that we never miss a hit and we never get a critical strike. We are also going to take an average hit from the lowest and the highest. Here is another boring table:



As you can see, we take the average damage and times it by the hit rate (2.86 or 3.33) and LA (which is 2.86) causes more damage in a single second. What if we spread that over time will the results be the same? You bet! if we times that figure by 20 (20 seconds) it just increases at the same rate. But what If we added the variables in, what would happen then? Well they are hard to work with, sure we could try work out the crit rates but the accuracy would be difficult, especially as it depends on who you are facing! however, ALL of these variables are backing LA. In other words, in its rawest form LA build is better, it more accurate and it has a 10% higher chance of causing a critical strike. there are other variables to look at (i.e More attacks means more chances to get criticals) however, LA/HA mix is so far behind at this point i will not pursue it any further. LA build is simply superior in terms of attack.

My Verdict

IMO, for PvP, the pros do not out weigh the cons and LA is the better choice. You Choose LA/HA mix in order to get higher APS, and this works. But you lose a lot in return. You have less attack power, less accuracy, less critical strike, less magic defense and you have less evasion. And in the end, for an assassin, these things are Important, in fact these are what make Sins, Sins. You need dexterity to increase your attacking power as well as accuracy and evasion, putting Str on your sin does nothing except allow you to wear gears which is why you need to keep it as low as possible. High crit rates and high accuracy work in tandem with your already high APS rate to cause severe damage. And higher evasion helps against classes with low accuracy like Barbarians. however this is not the only way you can increase your aps, no sir. You don't need to change armors to get higher APS. There is a little know genie skill that, when activated, will give you 5 aps, whether you are Demon or Sage. Interested? That skill is known as Relentless Courage. In order to achieve 5 aps though, your genie needs to be a high Str build. Since each 4 Str gives you a 1% increase in your attack rate (On top of 5% it already gives you) Lets say your genie has 100 Str that's 25% on top of the 5% = 30% increase. My Genie has 130 Str and I get 5 APS starting from 2.86 so you dont need any more Str than that.

I hope this guide has helped you and it is a deciding factor in which way you decide to go. Perhaps you have seen something which I have failed to take into consideration? If so please feel free to comment below and I will gladly use them to re-evaluate my findings. If you don't agree with me please don't just don't come in here flaming if you don't have any findings to present. I want this guide to be full of useful, practical information. Not idiotic idle chatter about who's is bigger.

Many Thanks ^_^

[Mars Attacks!]

Great explanation mate, thanks.

[torie]

whoa very useful, thanks

i've been wondering if i should do that mixing with my sin as well, he's wearing similar armor as yours.
So from a pure PVE dmg output point of view, seeing you gain 16% more attacks but lose 20% in attack power, you actually do less dmg in mixed armor than being pure light? Did i get that right?

[Darunia ஜ]

Wow, you just had to bring out the calculations and shit.  Great job.

I've seen this on PWI working on a BM, but I just never thought that I could make a sin wear HA/LA mix.  I like my crit way too much.  I may attack a little slower, but being able to do more damage (and crit to hell on top of that)=dead things faster.

[Nevyn]

whoa very useful, thanks

i've been wondering if i should do that mixing with my sin as well, he's wearing similar armor as yours.
So from a pure PVE dmg output point of view, seeing you gain 16% more attacks but lose 20% in attack power, you actually do less dmg in mixed armor than being pure light? Did i get that right?

I'm glad you asked actually because we can work this out. However we must first remove all variables. We are ignoring crit rates/ accuracy evasion etc. We are looking at the min attack and the max attack then working out its average. From here we take that average and times it by the number of hits per second, This gives us a comparable figure and the LA comes out on top with more damage. We then times this figure by 20 (Assuming we are attacking something for 20 seconds, we are never missing and never making a crit) and as expected this also come out on top, so yes you are correct. You cause more damage over time with full LA.
Thanks for a great question here's another geek table with the stats

[JHIN]

Nice work Nevyn.

i think one important variable would be weapon stones. you get one more chance to proc with 5 aps versus 4 right? im not good in math so i'd be glad if you can help us.. :smiley:

[Nevyn]

Nice work Nevyn.

i think one important variable would be weapon stones. you get one more chance to proc with 5 aps versus 4 right? im not good in math so i'd be glad if you can help us.. :smiley:

Yes this is similar to the bit I didn't work on. i.e more hits means more chance to make a critical strike. That type of formula is something that could change the story. However wth them been a variable, its pretty much impossible to say what it is, we could try average that but then we risk the results been inaccurate. But to be honest, I think with %'s that LA is ahead of LA/HA mix, we shouldn't need to do the maths. In terms of damage I strongly believe LA build is the way to go. However tomorrow I'll take a took at this. Leave me what extras will be done and what their % rates are. Lets see what we can do

[Cotoha]

Nice calculations. I am using LA/HA mix and i can tell you it works pretty nice. Also you get more HP ! And pdef makes the difference. As for atack power the difference between 90k and 84k is ... measly plus you are perma sparking and can save genie for other usefull skills.

[Areashi]

Many sins have used it.
tides used it, I have, LED did, from what I heard, and so on.
I stopped it however, as I found dph'ing in it impossible and almost always, useless.

[torie]

I'm glad you asked actually because we can work this out. However we must first remove all variables. We are ignoring crit rates/ accuracy evasion etc. We are looking at the min attack and the max attack then working out its average. From here we take that average and times it by the number of hits per second, This gives us a comparable figure and the LA comes out on top with more damage. We then times this figure by 20 (Assuming we are attacking something for 20 seconds, we are never missing and never making a crit) and as expected this also come out on top, so yes you are correct. You cause more damage over time with full LA.
Thanks for a great question here's another geek table with the stats

Thanks a lot
am also curious what comes out with the crit rates and proc chances counted in, but i guess staying LA is the way for me, since i also like using the aoe skills once in a while

[torie]

I wondered what about Heavy armor classes wearing light wrist and boots? I did the test with my seeker. She didn't have to restat at all, the dex requirement of LA is still below Dual Edges.
Meaning: her dmg didn't go down at all, just HP and def went down a bit. Imo, having light wrists and boots with you to exchange for when you're only singletarget dpsing (GV bosses for example) is a good idea.
Same would most probably also account for BMs, if they're statted for fists they have the dex anyways.

[Auriel]

finally someone does the math there. I already know it isnt worth it, but i still have a 5.0 demon farming sin. I know it doesnt hit as much, but the extra speed does let me keep up a constant spark. I also try to compensate by using blood vengence stones for added atk and healing on top of bp, and puri and heal frrom spark, etc. That doesnt make it better, but for pve he holds his own against tough bosses and he's only lvl 148  xD

Oh and i DO know the relentless courae thing, i just hate the energy cost. Besides, Wolf emblem, spark, (harmony during spark so it activates once it ends), condenced thorn, and subsea, mire, frenzy simultaniously does wonders in pve when used with 5.0 especially if vengence kicks in. The resulting high dps from all those boosts combined with BP (or if im desperate blood frenzy) almost completely nulls the defence decrease that comes at the cost of frenzy's 20% atk lvl boost; only shining through if you miss frequently, or the mob hits fast and hard. (or if the use bramble, but at this end game level, any boss who brambles could rape you if you dont pay attention, thats y i always have expel too)  xD

Anyways, what im sayin is this. I dont need 5.0, nor do i support it if it comes at the cost of damaging stats. But he's a farming sin, as long as he survives it doesnt matter how much damage i do tbh lol (thats also why i sometimes fly when fighting tough bosses to cut damages in half. It takes longer to kill them, but makes it harder for them to kill me too.  ;p ) If i wanted a REAL assassin, i'd roll an r8 (maybe with dragon bracers or chest, depending on whether i want aps+crit, or aps+def) pure dex sage..... nvm i'll cut off here, this post is long enough lol ive made my point. Thanks for the great guide man, and gl to u all. Marry christmas (if you love the holidays that much LOL)


                                                                                                                        hehehehehehe..... marry....   

[Nevyn]

Nice calculations. I am using LA/HA mix and i can tell you it works pretty nice. Also you get more HP ! And pdef makes the difference. As for atack power the difference between 90k and 84k is ... measly plus you are perma sparking and can save genie for other usefull skills.

The difference between 90k and 84k is measly, however that's just a single hit. Sins hit up to 5 times every second. So the differences after 20 seconds is over 100k. That's not really a measly. Yeah you are right about the hp, that's something I overlooked, I will have to add it add it to my original post, thanks. I will work on the critical hit rates when I get back, I believe they will back the full la build but we shall see

[nosidam]

Actually, the calcules must be done with 4.0 versus 5.0 aps, since you will be perma sparking on both builds....if u make the calcules again, notice the damage is the same................so now you decide about having more crit/accuracy or more hp/phys def

[Lan]

Nice to see the math. 

Thanks for the guide.